Thursday, December 1, 2016

IOC upgrades Team Nigeria’s Beijing Olympics bronze to silver

International Olympic Committee (IOC) has formally
written to inform Team Nigeria through the Nigeria Olympic Committee (NOC) that
she has upgraded Nigeria’s bronze medal won in the women’s 4x100 meter relay at
the 2008 Olympics in Beijing to silver.

Russia was stripped of the gold medal the country won
in the women’s 4×100m relay at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, after doping scandal
wreaked havoc on the nation’s athletes. The IOC disqualified Yulia
Chermoshanskaya, 30, after a re-analysis of the retired runner’s samples from
Beijing found traces of two banned substances in her system, stanozolol and
turinabol. She was also disqualified from the 200m, in which she finished
eighth.

NOC spokesman Tony Ubani said, in a letter from the
IOC addressed to President of NOC, Engineer Habu Gumel and signed by Pere Miro,
the IOC said: “it is our pleasure to inform you that your relay team is now
placed second in this same event”. Belgium has been upgraded to the relay gold,
with Nigeria moving up to silver and Brazil to bronze.

And in order to proceed to the re-allocation according
to the new classification, the IOC asked the NOC to send back the bronze
medals, the second place diplomas and the bronze medallists pins of Ms Franca
Idoko, Ms Gloria Kemasuode, Ms Halimat Ismaila and Ms Oludamola Osayomi who
were Team Nigeria’s flag bearers in the women relay team.